


Worth the Wear of Winning

by Zoe Rayne (MontanaHarper)



Category: Soldier of Fortune Inc.
Genre: Angst, Early Work, Emo, First Time, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-01
Updated: 1999-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:14:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontanaHarper/pseuds/Zoe%20Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chance listens as a drunken Benny Ray laments the state of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth the Wear of Winning

**Author's Note:**

> Originally appeared in _Don't Ask, Don't Tell #1_ , a slash zine from Wild Side Press and was nominated for a 1998 STIFfie.
> 
>  **AO3 A/N:** This is an example of my very early fanfic. For historical purposes I'm leaving it as it was originally posted, including the summary. Even if a lot of it makes me cringe now.

> From quiet homes and first beginning,  
>  Out to the undiscovered ends,  
>  There's nothing worth the wear of winning,  
>  But laughter and the love of friends.  
>  — Hilaire Belloc

I hadn't seen anyone knock back that much tequila since I got out of boot camp. We were sitting in the dining room of his apartment less than two hours after Benny Ray's estranged wife had picked up their kids, and he was well on his way to one hell of a hangover tomorrow morning. Or maybe to the hospital tonight, at this rate.

"Benny Ray," I tried to get his attention. "Hey, buddy. Slow down a little, okay? You've got the rest of your life to drink." He looked up at me, eyes not quite focused.

"Chance," he said, his southern drawl more pronounced than it had been just a few minutes ago. He put his arm around my shoulders and leaned closer to me. "Chance, buddy…"

"Yeah?" I tried to keep my face back from him. You could've lit his breath with a match.

"I miss my kids, man."

"I know, Benny Ray, I know. But at least you get to see 'em, right? Some guys never even get to see their kids. Mary Ellen's pretty good about bringing them to visit." I've never known what to say to my buddies when they're depressed, especially about family stuff. There's a reason why I'm a confirmed bachelor.

"Yeah, she's a good woman. I was such a shit to her. What kind of fuckin' husband was I, always away from home, from her an' the kids? Always off somewhere, tryin' to get m'self killed." He pulled away from me and his head dropped into his hands, his shoulders shaking.

"Hey, it's okay, man. Things will look better in the morning, right?" Yeah, that's me, the eternal optimist. "You were doing your job. She knew what you were when she married you."

"She didn't know. She wouldn'ta married me if she knew. What woman wants to be married to a fuckin' faggot, huh?" Benny Ray said, his voice muffled in his hands. "And what kind of father am I for m' boys? Teach 'em how to be queer."

I stared at him for a minute, sure that he couldn't have said what I thought he'd said. Benny Ray was probably the last guy I'd expect to be gay. Thinking back, I guess I'd really bought into his redneck jarhead act, even though our friendship alone should've clued me in; rednecks don't usually have a black guy for a best friend.

Suddenly I realized he was looking straight at me, and it was like fire was burning in his blue eyes. Benny Ray was usually pretty intense, but now his expression was almost desperate.

"Yeah, you heard me," he said. "I'll regret it in the mornin', but what the hell. M' life sucks anyway. You'll tell Shepherd and he'll drop me from the team and life'll go on. It won't change nothin'. Nothin' that's important, anyways."

I guess I should've been expecting it, but I was so surprised by his words that his actions caught me off guard. Before I knew what was happening, his mouth was covering mine and I tasted tequila and felt his tongue pressing between my lips.

I pushed him away from me and looked him in the eye. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something. Probably waiting for me to deck him. Judging from his expression, I doubt he would've put up a fight, though on a good day we would've been pretty evenly matched.

Instead I just said, "No, I'm not going to tell the major anything about tonight, okay? You're a good man, Benny Ray. You're an important member of the team. And you're gonna sober up and tomorrow things will look different. Better."

The look on his face was somewhere between a kicked dog and a prisoner on death-row. I hadn't done what he was afraid I would, but I hadn't done what he wanted me to, either. I'd like to say that I thought about it for a long time and made a rational decision about what I was going to do, but the truth is I just acted on instinct. I decided, in my gut, what Benny Ray needed from me, and I did it, just like I would've done for any member of the team.

Reaching out, I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him to me, kissing him the same way he had kissed me. Some oddly detached part of my mind noticed how velvety soft the short hair at his nape was, and how tense the muscles of his neck were. He pulled away and stared at me in drunken incomprehension before standing up. My movements matched his, though I was a little more graceful in my sobriety. I'm not sure which of us initiated the next kiss, but it was deep and intense and I know that I was the one who pulled out of it because I needed to breathe.

He still looked like he thought I might betray him any time, like I might snap his neck or just beat him into unconsciousness. Instead, I reached out and took his hand, pulling him towards the bedroom. Hell, if I hadn't known better, I would've wondered whether I was drunk, too.

But I was sober and all I could think about was that Benny Ray was my friend, that he was one of us, one of the team, and I'd do whatever I had to for any of them. He needed me to be a friend—and more—to him tonight. It certainly wouldn't be the most unpleasant thing I'd done in my life and it had to be better than Bosnia.

As we stood in the tiny bedroom, tongues exploring each other's mouths, I felt his hands pulling at my clothes, threatening to rip what I didn't immediately take off. I tried to strip him, too, but we ended up on the bed, a tangled mess of arms and legs and half-shed fabric.

Lying on my back in the middle of the bed, I could feel the hard press of his jean-covered erection against my thigh. He fought his jeans down around his ankles and then off and without a pause he slid his body down mine until he faced my cock. He stopped then, and I suddenly found myself wondering whether I'd made the right decision. That thought lasted a half-second, just until he took my cock into his mouth and started sucking on it, working it until it was achingly hard, all with an eagerness I'd never known from any woman I'd been with.

Once I was completely hard, he pulled himself up until he was face to face with me again, his weight supported on his arms.

"Chance…" He stopped and I could see the uncertainty in his eyes.

"Yeah, Benny Ray? What do you want me to do?" I was only guessing at what was behind his open question, but it looked like I'd hit the nail on the head.

"Chance, oh god! I wanna fuck you." He stopped then, and again looked at me like he expected me to deck him.

It felt like someone punched me in the pit of my stomach. I don't know whether it was the words or the tone or what, but something about that simple statement of desire made my already-raging hard-on even harder.

"You'll have to show me what to do."

He leaned off the edge of the bed, pulled open a drawer in the nightstand and rummaged around. I was beginning to wonder if I'd need to help him when he finally pulled out a bottle and a handful of foil-wrapped packets. I realized that I was relieved that he was prepared; I hadn't even thought about the consequences of what I'd offered to him.

He knelt and tore open one of the packets, pulling out a condom and, with surprising deftness considering the quantity of tequila he'd drunk, rolled it onto his cock. Carefully opening the bottle, he squirted some clear liquid onto his fingers and flipped the top shut again.

"Astroglide," he said, as though that should mean something to me. I must've looked blank because he explained further. "Lube."

Tongue captured between his lips in a picture of concentration, he used his forearms to spread my legs apart. One part of my brain was wondering what I'd gotten myself into, but my body's response was overriding any nervousness I might have had.

When I looked up at him I saw a passion that I wasn't sure I was ready to deal with. I closed my eyes and tried to focus only on the sensation of his hands on my body. His fingers probing me, gently at first and then more roughly, felt like nothing I'd ever experienced before. It was like being opened up, having everything intimate bared to the world. Without warning he pulled away from me, leaving me wondering whether I dared risk opening my eyes.

A moment later, his hands were at the back of my thighs, pushing my legs up and lifting my hips off the bed. A firm and insistent pressure pushed against me briefly, then my body relented and let him inside. There was an instant of burning, the pain sharp enough to make me suck my breath in, and Benny Ray froze.

"Chance, god Chance, I'm sorry. Y'okay?" He sounded almost panicked and I suddenly wondered if it had been a bright idea to let the least sober of us be the one to run the show.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Benny Ray." I opened my eyes and looked at him, hoping that he didn't notice the unsteadiness in my voice. The stinging was quickly fading, but not as quickly as I'd have liked. "I'm just not used to this, that's all. Don't stop" When I heard myself, I realized that somewhere along the line this had gone from a charitable act to something that I wanted as well.

I guess I was convincing enough, because he started moving, slowly at first and then faster, thrusting against me in a desperate rhythm that made me arch my hips against him. My cock throbbed with every thrust and I wanted to feel him even deeper inside me.

I hadn't realized that the moan had come from me until I heard Benny Ray's voice. "Yeah, Chance, you feel so good, so tight. Man, you have no idea how long I've wanted to fuck you, to suck you off."

His eyes were closed and sweat was trickling down the sides of his face, his close-cropped hair standing up on end. Something about the way his mouth was set, lips parted and breath coming in gasps, made me pull his face down to mine into a deep kiss.

When he pulled away I could feel his body begin to tense up. He thrust one last time, harder than before, and I could feel the odd sensation of his cock throbbing in my ass. His head was tipped back and the expression on his face as he came was somewhere between agony and ecstasy. Then he relaxed down onto me, turning his head to rest it on my shoulder.

"Jesus, Chance, that was great." The words were slightly muffled, but less slurred than his speech earlier.

Trapped between our sweat-slicked bodies, my cock was still hard and aching. I debated for a minute, then straightened my legs out along his sides, feeling his cock slide out of me.

I nudged him. "Hey, Benny Ray."

"Wha'?" He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at me, his face glowing with a sheen of sweat. "Oh, Christ, I am so tanked."

"No shit. So are you just gonna leave me like this?" I arched a little, so he'd have no doubt about what I meant.

He grinned at me and then closed in for another one of those breathtaking kisses. Hell, if I'd known he could kiss like that we might've ended up in this position a long time ago. Well, probably not, but man

When we came up for air, he pushed himself off me and up onto his knees. Slipping the condom off, he dropped it over the edge of the bed into the wastebasket. When he turned back he was looking down at me with an expression that I couldn't read.

"You wanted somethin', Chance?"

Damn right I wanted something. I wrapped my hand around my cock, pushing the stiff shaft away from me until it pointed straight into the air. "What are you gonna do about this, huh? It's your fault, you should take care of it."

He was still looking at me oddly, and I had started to wonder whether I'd said or done something wrong when he said, "Tell me what you want, Chance. You gotta tell me, man, so I know it's what you really want."

Fair enough. Not like it was easy for me to say, but I could understand where he was coming from. I took a deep breath and said, "I want you to suck me off, Benny Ray."

He closed his eyes for a second and I heard his breath hiss through his teeth, then he sighed. When he looked at me again I felt like a slab of raw meat dropped in front of a starving lion. He put his hands flat on my thighs and slid them slowly upward, towards where I was still holding my cock, sending a tingle of anticipation along my spine and wrenching a low moan from my throat.

When he leaned over and took my cock into his mouth, it was with the same eagerness as before and I felt electrical current shooting through my body, setting fire to my nerves. My hips thrust counter to his movements. The wet, slick heat of his mouth came and went on my cock, like the ebb and flow of the tide.

As I watched, I couldn't help thinking that he was the same Benny Ray who guarded my back and risked his life alongside me every day. That thought alone was enough to push me over the edge, the sound of blood pulsing loudly in my ears drowning out my own cries as I came in his mouth.

My orgasm didn't stop him; he kept sucking until I thought I'd scream from the sheer sweet agony of it. Just as I'd finally decided that it was possible to die from a blowjob, he released my cock and began licking and nibbling his way up across my stomach and chest until we were face to face. He kissed me gently and then rolled off and lay on his back beside me.

The only sound in the room was the whisper of our breathing, a quiet reminder of what we had just done. I tried to think of something to say. Somehow, 'Hey, thanks,' just didn't seem appropriate.

Hell, it didn't matter. Tomorrow Benny Ray would be sober and we'd probably go on as if nothing had ever happened, but tonight we'd shared something that didn't need words.


End file.
